Visitation
Last time I saw my half brother alive, he was sleep in our father’s police
jeep with one arm stuffed up his shirtsleeve—that’s at least what I needed.
I was in there too,
making Polly Pockets hook up in the cup
holder. Of that, I’m certain. I deserved
that.
We got left in the car while daddy shopped Lowe’s for a four-mode
showerhead suitable for Pricilla, the woman he bench-pressed & ballooned
his privacy for. I recall her bonnet making couch cushions slick & me
sweeping her taupe-colored makeup wipes from behind the vanity when
the trash can was thrown to break my heart for lying. Something
about her nightgown with the chartreuse tassels, I feel,
encouraged him to leave us in the backseat, at the Bally
Total daycare, “in our skin”—a joke of his
that ends, “when I jumped out, you
jumped in.”
But this wasn’t most my life. I belonged to my mother
six hours west and only left
once a season
for the purpose of daddy laying his belts and
depression on me. If ever I were trapped in his
car or harmed with garbage, it was only once
a season.
Between these visits, he’d never call to
see how I was. He’d never call to say how
anyone else was. It wasn’t that
I lacked a phone. Mama strung a double dutch of
landlines in every bedroom. I had the means
to speak. There were means
everywhere I slept.
Pity jives inside the belief that my father was too chicken to ring, that most
men of slave descent have had, at some time, a reasonable yet
detrimental fear of the home
and its phones.
But harm isn’t most my life.
I weep & achieve it only once
a season. If ever I am
trapped in police cars or harmed
with garbage, it is only because
it is the season.
